Weekend update

 It was good to read in music writer Ramiro Burr’s report that the Verizon rescinded its plan to charge a $20 parking fee. Nothing like a “free” concert that costs $20 to get into the parking lot, not to mention the hefty prices for liquid refreshment, which was mandatory on a hot day. Good PR move.

 Speaking of liquid refreshment, a caller to KISS-FM this morning told a cautionary tale — if a woman offers to flash you in exchange for a beer, make sure you at least get a down payment BEFORE handing her said beer. The caller said two girls made such an offer in the beer line. He complied, and they promptly disappeared into the crowd.

 Something less amusing was another KISS caller’s tale of seeing lots of very young kids, including one bouncing on Mom’s shoulders in the moshpit. He estimated the age at eight months, which would seem to make the youngun’ a candidate for shaken-baby syndrome (not to mention sunstroke). Apparently this continued despite plenty of unsolicited, uh, advice from concertgoers. Another caller told of baby in a stroller in the moshpit.

 Glad to see that sports guy Jay Nanda was a true Ozzfest warrior. Judging from his report on Page 2 of Sports today (well worth checking out), he was there from beginning to end. You have to respect that. As someone who has trouble standing for a few hours in an air-conditioned nightclub (my knees are remarkably cartilage-free), I sure do.

Misc.

 Folks out in Loopland who rarely venture downtown may not realize exactly how popular San Antonio is as a tourist destination. As a downtown worker, I’ve seen enough same-colored T-shirts and folks with nametags on weekdays to know S.A. is a hit with school groups and conventioneers.

But going downtown on a Saturday, as I did this weekend to meet with out-of-town guests attending a reunion from my wife’s side of the family tree (i.e., the less-twisted side), is a whole different animal. Alamo Plaza was just crawling with folks. The line to get into the Alamo at midday was more than a hundred deep, reaching almost to the Haagen-Dasz shop next to the Menger (where our guests were staying). And only a few had Cowboys gear, so it wasn’t just training-camp overflow.

Naturally, when you’re the local guy, you assume the role of tour guide/expert. Since I figured a bus ride to Ozzfest was probably not a good idea (our group of 12 had an age range of 20 to a week shy of 86), we settled for lunch at Zuni Grill. Which was not as crowded as I expected, considering it was 12:30 p.m.

 Nothing like starting the week in a state of near panic, which is what I had this morning when I grabbed a paper off the stack as I came to work and saw a huge Page 1 promo for the Redneck Games piece in Metro. My first thought: “Damn! How did we miss that?”

Much to my relief, I pulled out the Metro section and saw the ATHENS dateline. The Texas Redneck Games were held on a ranch near this town an hour southeast of Dallas — and 250 miles from S.A. Whew!